The Exodus Sagas: Book IV - Of Moons and Myth (17 page)

“Not much to do until morning my friend.
Just a few more hours and we can rouse the others.
”

“I can’t take it, all those noises are makin’ me mad in the head. I need to see what’s out there Shinayne.”

“Just be patient, breath deep. Going out in the night is not wise.”

“Sure about that? I mean if yer frightened and all, tis allright I s’pose.” Zen smiled.

Shinayne raised her eyebrows at him, not entirely certain of his meaning. “Are you suggesting we scout ahead, in the dark? What about the others? They are sleeping.”

“Gwenneth can look after em’ better than we,
she be up already anyhow.
C
ome on elf, I need to see a bit closer is all. Just a few miles or so, then we come straight back. I won’t wear me armor, quiet, like you.”

“This is a bad idea.”

“Aye, thought ye’ be a bit scared. It is black as tar out there, all them noises---

“I am not afraid, dwarf. Just cautious.”

“Gwenneth, Shinayne and
I be scoutin’ the area for a time
, a cautionary bit o’ surveyin’ then
. Keep an eye, magic or otherwise, on everyone.” Zen saw the raised hand from within green arcane light, letting him know she had heard him.
Her face never lifted from the
almost finished
book from
the dragon
Ansharr, but her eyes glanced up once.

“You stocky sneak, I did not agree to this at all, and---“

“Well, I be goin’ alone then, could use
another set o’ ears and eyes, not to mention them swords.” He got to his feet, grabbed his
blacksteel
warhammer and shield, then his pack, and lastly put on his helm. His steps headed west, he looked back, and the elf was following without as much as a sound.

“Ah
h
, that’s me girl. Never sayin’ no, I like that about ye’, aye I do.”

“I am simply going to make sure you stay alive, this is still a poor idea.” Shinayne crept, step by step, alongside Zen as they headed down the ridge and made for lower ground.

“Just a stretch of the legs is all, not much more. Cheer up elf.”

Slick rock gave way to soft ground after they veered from the Temple Way. Skeletons of trees that should be in bloom waved their branches. Dead brush that was either too dry or too wet refused to grow. Pattering rains had them soaked in minutes, the gloom of breezes and voices from unseen sources kept them on edge, and both of them strained to see a star or glimmer of anything in the dark canopy of night.

“
I think this is far enough Az
en
airk
,
just more
foot
hills ahead, nothing is getting any closer.” Shinayne had her blades half out, tight grips, constantly looking for the sources of the eerie feelings she now had.

Azenairk
…

“Ye’ hear that?”

“What? I heard nothing.” Shinayne stopped next to Zen, now a mile from their cavern camp high on the ridge.

“Shinayne, somethin’ said me name, whispered it.
Out there
.” He pointed west and a bit south, toward a
high
hill that was only visible with the flashes of intermittent silent lightning.

Shinayne
…

“I just heard mine as well, this is far enough. Let’s head back
to get the others
.”

Others…

“Allright, enough o’ that. It be repeatin’ what w
e say is all. I have to know what it is
.” The dwarven priest marc
hed
toward the hill to the southwest.

What it is
…

Shinayne listened, the voice was but a whisper, neither male nor female, just
hollow
words on the breeze. The elven noble decided to try and trick whatever it was
, to see if it merely caught words it heard
.

“We are turning around now
, heading back to our friends.
”

Liar
…

“Zen, it can see us, I do
not
like this.”

“Agreed, but we be almost there. Come on.” T
he last Thalanaxe trudged up another
hill.

Strokes of angry white danced from the darkness above
and all around
the misty vale below. Zen put his boot up on a
piece of
stone foundation of a
crumbled
tow
er at the precipice of the hill. It seemed an old outpost was here, now
long forgo
tten and worn smooth on its south
face. Shinayne took cover beside a
broken
pillar, one of several, also worn smooth on one side.
They stared at a moving orange mist, miles across, as it wormed slowly around old structures and stone streets
below
them. The mist
seemed contained by a ravine, a circular ditch of immense proportion that had no end
and encircled as far as the eye could see
. It appeared that miles ahead in the valley, beyond this ravine,
indeed
lay
a ruined city. In the
stormlit
darkness
only momentary glimpses could be taken, but that was enough to see that it was grand, immense, and
almost
moving
somehow
.

“
Do you see what I see, my bearded friend
?” Shinayne whispered.

“
Aye. I see a city, mountains at its south side, road leads up to doors in the mountains. Ye think this is it
?” Zen was cold, nervous, trying not to stare at the orange mist far ahead or the strange movement the whole ruin
s
seemed to have.

“
I believe we just found Mooncrest, my friend
.”

“
What is left of it ye’ mean
.”

“Still, this must be it.”

“I’ll believe it when we reach the doors to Kakisteele. Tis pretty big though, even with the little we can see now.”

“Do you notice the buildings, the statues, the mist, see anything strange?”

“Aye, be all dark save for silent lightning with no thunder and some orange stuff writhin’ about inside the ruins.”

“Agreed
. But I was speaking more of the way it moves, like the mist is chasing
the
shadows, something is unnatural
ly conscious
here
, something unseen watches us
.
”
Shinayne looked, a mile ahead with the flashing of a silent storm, and peered across the ruined metropolis.

“Ye’ mean less natural than
the giant trench
surrounding a millennia old ruin with an orange cloud that moves along the ground by itself?”

Shinayne
’
s stare and raised eyebrow in silence let him know she was aware of his sarcasm.

“Closer look
then
?”

Come c
loser…

“
Ahh
, ye’ shut up
stupid
spirits.
Little bit
further
elf?”

“This is insane, you realize that, right?
We should head back.
”

“That be a
yes
if ever I heard one.” Zen began down
the slick hill, water dripping
out of his black braided beard.
He stared at the orange mist, somewhat entranced and curious.

Step by step, down the two went into the lowlands. Dark yellow jags and peaks appeared far to the south with the flashes of lightning, old foundations in the earth held nothing but memory, and only muffled whispers
and rain
in the night made noise. They stopped, the city ruins and orange mist still a
half
mile ahead. Shinayne and Zen looked down into the trench only inches in front of their feet. It was deep, thirty feet or more, and miles long and curved in each direction. They
looked across, it was a fifty
or more feet to the other side.
Splashing and sloshing of water could be heard below them, something was moving in the enormous ditch. Many things.

“By Vundren, what coulda’ made such a trench? Looks recent too, I don’t understand it.”
Zen reached his hand over the edge a bit and f
elt the loose soil and wet rock
.

“Nevermind what made it, what is it that is moving down in there?” Shinayne tried to see in the dark, it was too far.

Nevermind
…

“Those voices are getting closer now, perhaps it is time you shed some light on the area, they know we are here anyway.” Shinayne wiped the rain from her face and looked to Zen.

“Ye’ sure? Once I do that, everything from here to the mountains is gonna see us.” He held his hammer and moons symbol that hung from the chain on his neck.

“You wanted to come here and see, now we are here. Unless you are afraid.”

“
Baah
, don’t try that on me elf.
Vundren eth edrith vun vast
.”
Zen spoke the prayer and channeled yellow light around his warhammer.
The area glowed for fifty feet or more in every direction.

“
Oh by Siril!
” Shinayne gasped as she pulled Zen back away from the ravine
fast
.

Hundreds, thousands there were, a ravine filled with skeletons trying to climb up the muddy embankment, brown water up to their knees. None had flesh nor clothing, not even
a shroud, just mud covered remains that moved. White bones,
all moist from rain
,
that
were crawling
over each other in a feeble attempt to make it up and out. There were no voices, no noise but the clacking of jaws and bone, and the sloshing of
uncountable bones
that moved and stare
d with a trickle of deep shadow from with
in their skulls. They pleaded without expression, to the mortals that stood on solid ground above, seemingly asking assistance with reaches and outstretched dead hands. They would glare
with their flickering black
sockets, then fall as the ones from behind piled over them, then they too would fall and struggle helplessly. Then more and more, like an endless wave o
f dead that fought itself, trying
to emerge and converge where the glow was coming from, as if they had not seen the shine of light in thousands of years.

“By all that is holy on the mountain of God, what is this?” Zen backed up with Shinayne, r
ealizing the skeletons could not
and would not reach him, yet the sight was unnerving and forcing him back. He looked to how far the ravine curved to his left and right in the darkness, assuming it stopped at the base of the Kaki Mountains. It was
a few miles in each direction he surmised. “Must be hundreds o’ thousands o’ the dead here in this trench.
Vundren have mercy
, why are they still movin’?
”

“The orange mist is heading this way, look.” Shinayne pointed into the ruined city, closer now, she could make out taller buildings, a tower, and even part of a wall that still stood in the vast metropolis of what must have once been Mooncrest.

The mist was not more
than three feet off the ground, its orange glow barely illuminated anything, and it was as silent as the ruins it traversed. T
wisting and turning like a serpent through ruined homes and forgotten str
uctures,
it was at least a mile long and moving right toward the light, right for Zen and Shinayne.

This way, look…

Every step they took back was i
nstinct, and every few feet away
they went
,
the orange mist gained fifty. It was entrancing to watch, perhaps they did not notice
how close it had gotten, or how loud the whispers had become, but both the elf and the dwarf watched as the mist dove into the ravine, and then they covered their ears as hundreds of ghastly screams tore into the air with a flash of orange light. Suddenly the screams stopped, and boney hands reached over the edge of the now glowing ravine. Hundreds, eyes glo
wing with orange fire bright
, shambl
ing
to soli
d ground with some renewed awareness
t
hat seemed to guide them
.
More continued to reach to edge,
their bones slowly covering with gray ghastly flesh as they climbed to their feet, lifted by some unseen force
of intellect
. First the dead skin grew on the skulls, then worked its way down the vertebrae and ribs, then the thin gray membrane stretched over their appendages down to the tips of fingers and toes once only bone.